Keep Your Eyes OFF the Prize

If Cincinnati is known for anything (especially among its many runners and cyclists), it is known for its hills. You can't run, bike, hike or even walk very far in this city without encountering multiple inclines, some of which are very steep! That is partly what makes our Flying Pig Marathon so notorious! When I run outside or hit the road on my bike, there is no avoiding the hills. And while many exercisers despise hills, I've come to accept them—even appreciate them. And no, I'm not a masochist.

On my many long runs these past few months (I will be running the Flying Pig half marathon this Sunday), I've climbed a lot of hills and had a lot of time to think about each one. I've realized that we all have our own hills—in running, in weight loss and in life. Whether a hill slows us down or holds us back has less to do with its actual physicality (or our own) and much more to do with our outlook as we approach it.

Each time I reach the foot of another steep hill, I look forward, not up. When I look for the top it's far too easy to feel deflated. That end goal looks so far away and so difficult to reach! I tend to lose momentum and often get side-tracked with negative thoughts about how hard it's going to be. But when I keep my eyes directly forward, watching the ground just a few feet in front of me, it's amazing how my attitude changes. From that view, I can't tell how long or how steep a climb is. In fact, I can hardly even tell I'm going uphill at all. When I look forward instead of up, I maintain speed (and a much sunnier disposition), and I reach the top of the incline almost effortlessly. Only then do I look back and see how far I've really come. And remember: The view from the top is much better than the view from the bottom!

While each hill we encounter may feel like a roadblock, it's not. It's a challenge that, while perhaps long or hard, will eventually come to an end. If you keep moving forward, you will always reach the top. If you keep going from there, you will feel wind and gravity carrying you with speed and ease to the bottom. And once you're on a flat again, you appreciate it that much more. You harness that momentum from the downhill and keep pushing forward.

Eyes forward, I approach a hill like I would any other goal: one step at a time. Your goal may be big: to lose 100 pounds, to run a marathon, to pay down a large debt. If you only look at the end goal (the summit) from where you are now (the foot), it's easy to feel discouraged. But when you break it into smaller steps and keep your eyes focused on what you can do right now in this moment, the top doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is the next step you take.

Trust me, no one sets out to run a marathon thinking, "I am 26.2 miles from the finish line!" They take it one step and one mile at a time. And if you plan to lose 50 or 100 pounds—or whatever you goal—the worst thing you can do is focus on how far away that end goal is.

Sometimes getting there will be labored, long and challenging. But it is the nature of any hill or challenge to make us stronger in body and in spirit. Every hill I ascend makes me appreciate the descents and the flats that much more. Hill training makes you stronger and faster when hills aren't present because everything else feels so much easier. Each incline I climb gives me a chance to push through a challenging situation (one that—let's be honest—I'd rather avoid) and build not just leg strength, but character as well. It makes you proud. It makes you realize that if you can do this, there is no limit to what else you can achieve.

Great Stories from around the Web

Comments

I'm so glad I read this today. I live in Pittsburgh, and there are a lot of hills so I can totally relate to what you're saying. I need to stop focusing on the end result, and be in the present moment--look straight ahead. Thank you!
- 2/21/2015 10:03:00 AM

Oh! I love this! I know how to do this in lots of parts of my life but right now I'm working on a fitness challenge and I'm just beginning to incorporate the "eyes forward" attitude as I strive towards it. Funny how it takes a while, sometimes, to see something's transfer-ability. Now, when I'm working towards my new fitness goal I'll think if you and remember - one step at a time. Thanks!
- 5/4/2013 6:05:11 AM

Yet another recycled item....maybe Spark People need more bloggers or just ones who have the time to attend to their blogs...or at least allow us points for them, since many are recycled from articles published on the site a few years ago....

Kind of telling when a "new" blog post can have more that 20K views in a couple of hours
- 5/4/2013 1:27:45 AM

Great advice, as always. I'm beginning to like running hills--do it enough and it begins to grow on you. Looking just a few feet or yards in front gets me to the top. See you at Flying Pig!
- 1/17/2013 8:58:43 AM

Thank goodness I read this blog. I'm running the Flying Pig, too, and I spent a good chunk of my Sunday staring at the map and layout of the race course, agonizing over those 4 miles of nothing. but. up. hill. I don't think I've done quite enough hill training, although I've done much more than I did for my previous HM. I get pretty nervous about it!! So I'll be taking this blog to heart when I run that race. I can't hit mile 6 and think, "well, the next four miles are going to be agonizing." I have to think, "just one more minute" until all those hills are done.

The best part is that even if I do keep my eyes OFF the prize, once I hit mile 10, I get a sweet reward anyway -- the last 3.1 miles are downhill!
- 4/18/2012 8:46:54 PM

Love this blog! Not only did you help me get through the hills in my neighborhood as I run but other obstacles in my life. I am planning to share this with my Financial Peace University group. So many feel hopeless when they begin, hmm, like I do with my weight loss, but by completing one step it is amazing what we can achieve. I needed this article. :)
- 4/18/2012 3:17:35 PM

I will add my thanks to the many others! My scale has been stuck for a few weeks (maybe it's broken??). I have lost inches, my clothes fit better, I feel better, I have more energy and yet I get stuck on the fact that the scale doesn't move. Baby steps. Consistency. Positive decisions. One at a time. Got it.
- 4/17/2012 10:46:04 PM

I love it!! This was GREAT and SO TRUE!! We have to press on to the goal - but I too have discovered not to look up at the hill when I'm biking. I usually keep my eyes on my front wheel and keep peddling. If I look ahead and see where I have to go yet I start complaining - but just taking it one rotation at a time eventually gets me up the hill without a major back and forth dialogue going one within my brain!! - 4/17/2012 3:19:02 PM

This is SO true. I have to share when I first started walking, there is a hill .4 miles from my house. I would walk to it, and back several times, but not go down it because I did't want to climb back up it. Then I would take so many steps down, and increase that number each week until I finally made it to the bottom. Walking up it again (at 290lbs) was worse than I expected. I had to stop to catch my breath. I wanted to cry when I looked up to see how far I still had to go, so, I closed my eyes, concentrated on my breathing, and counted steps. When I approach that hill now (50+lbs lighter) I hardly know it's there. Some days I turn and take the bigger hill for a better workout. But I still think sometimes that if I hadn't closed my eyes I might have just let that hill defeat me.
- 4/17/2012 1:57:20 PM

I've definitely found that breaking things down into mini-goals is the best way to go.

Right now I'm nearing the end of my weight loss journey, training for a half-marathon, and trying to pay down debt. If I only looked at the big picture for all those things, I'd give up right now! But focusing on one half-pound at a time, one long run at a time, one payment at a time has made all the difference. Then I can look back at my progress every month or so and marvel at how far I've come. And I definitely look forward to the celebration when I reach my ultimate goals!
- 4/17/2012 10:51:37 AM

That was a very good message. When we look at the big picture, the big number, the end result, we can get overwhelmed and feel like it's just too much and we just can't do it. But if we break that big goal up into smaller, more manageable pieces, we can succeed--at anything.

SparkPeople, SparkCoach, SparkPages, SparkPoints, SparkDiet, SparkAmerica, SparkRecipes, DailySpark, and other marks are trademarks of SparkPeople, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
SPARKPEOPLE is a registered trademark of SparkPeople, Inc. in the United States, European Union, Canada, and Australia. All rights reserved.

NOTE: Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy last updated on October 25, 2013